Night: The Flock: An Interior: Another Interior
- It's midnight, a few days after Oak saw the woman in the wagon, and there's a strong wind blowing.
- The narrator spends nearly two pages describing how clear and beautiful the night is. And from this beautiful night come the sounds of… Farmer Oak's flute. Yeah, dude plays the flute, too. Isn't that just so idyllic?
- Now it's time for a little backstory. It turns out that it hasn't been long since people started calling Gabriel "Farmer Oak." It's only recently that his hard work and good spirits have allowed him to buy a flock of sheep on credit. In other words, he's in a good position, but there's a lot riding on this flock of sheep he's taking care of.
- After popping out of his shepherd's hut for a moment, Oak returns with a newborn lamb, hoping to warm it next to his fireplace. And again, we all go, "Awwww."
- When the little lamb starts to gain its strength, Oak goes outside and stares at the stars.
- While looking, he realizes that one star isn't a star at all, but a lantern burning in a nearby plantation's shed. He decides to go check it out after feeling a pinch of loneliness.
- He peeks into the shed through a crack in the roof and sees two women with cows. One of the women (the younger one) says to the other that she wishes they were rich enough to pay men to do the farm work. She also mentions that she has lost her hat.
- They need oatmeal for the morning, and the younger one volunteers to ride to the mill to get it. The women don't have a side-saddle with them, but the younger woman insists that she can ride "on the other" (2.31). A little history: in Hardy's time it was considered indecent (read: too sexy) for a woman to ride a horse astride, or straddling the horse with one leg on either side of the horse's back. Instead, women were supposed to ride with both legs hanging off one side of the horse.
- Riding astride is not something you'd want to be caught doing if you were a woman in Hardy's time, since it might affect your reputation. But the young woman in the shed insists that she's fine with it.
- When he hears her say these things, Oak wants to get a better look at the young woman. He soon realizes that she's the same pretty young woman he saw riding the wagon and arguing about the tollbooth price a few days ago.